


the very belated and very unnecessary valentine's day fic

by you_idjits



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Meet-Cute, Professor!Cas, This is so late and I am so not sorry, Valentine's Day, bartender!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 21:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3425645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_idjits/pseuds/you_idjits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What’s your name?”<br/>“Castiel. Cas.” He glances over the bartender, eyes catching on the long fingers scrubbing out a wine glass. Mmm. Nice hands.<br/>“I’m Dean,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”<br/>And maybe he holds Cas’s gaze for a moment too long, but they’re two strangers in a bar and nobody’s counting the seconds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the very belated and very unnecessary valentine's day fic

“Rough night?”

Cas taps the rim of his empty shot glass. “The worst. Whiskey, please.”

“Good choice.” The bartender crosses over and pours out a shot. “You want something to eat too? You’re taking in a lot of liquor, buddy.”

“Already had dinner.” Cas sighs. He holds his glass up to the light, then takes the shot. Too strong– he’s not much of a drinker, usually. Tonight he just wants to get drunk as fast as possible.

“You have, huh? Valentine’s Day date?” The bartender winks, and it makes something in Castiel’s stomach tighten. He has a very, very nice smile.

“No,” Cas says, “worse. Dinner with my ex.”

“Oh my God,” the bartender says. He puts down the glass he was cleaning to stare at Castiel. “You’re kidding. On Valentine’s Day?”

“We do business together,” he explains, “though that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. It was awful. He was hitting on me and I was trying to finish my work and– you get the picture.”

The bartender laughs and reaches for a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. “I get it. Here, have another shot. On the house.”

“Thank you. I was hoping to get drunk enough to forget this entire evening.”

“Yeah,” says the bartender, “I’m with you there. What’s your name?”

“Castiel. Cas.” He glances over the bartender, eyes catching on the long fingers scrubbing out a wine glass. Mmm. Nice hands.

“I’m Dean,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

And maybe he holds Cas’s gaze for a moment too long, but they’re two strangers in a bar and nobody’s counting the seconds.

“What about you?” Cas says, tearing his eyes away. “Can’t be your ideal Valentine’s Day, working the counter all night.”

“It’s all right,” Dean says. “I probably would have spent the evening watching _Pretty Woman_ with my little brother if I weren’t working, anyway. I’m not exactly hot date material.”

“I beg to differ,” Cas says, because the alcohol in his blood makes him bold.

Dean licks his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cas says, “Definitely hot date material.”

Dean smiles, just for a moment, and then he busies himself cleaning glasses. “So what do you do? Business?”

“I’m a professor, actually,” Cas says. He leans forward onto the counter. He’s starting to feel the whiskey now.

“Whoa, okay, awesome. Of what?”

“History and theology. Right now, I’m teaching a course on Genesis at Stanford.”

Dean nearly drops a glass, fumbling for it before it shatters. “Uh. You mean– uh.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I just– I think my brother– uh, do you have a kid in that class named Sam Winchester?”

Castiel straightens. “Yes, I– oh. You’re _Dean_. Oh, God.”

Dean’s eyes go wide, but then someone further down the bar calls for a refill. He puts up a finger. “Give me two seconds.” He picks up a beer and crosses to the woman, the façade slipping back on. Cas watches him go, watches the thin smile and cheap wink he offers her.

“So you’re my brother’s history professor,” Dean says, when he comes back. He places both hands on the counter and leans into it, stares down at the floor. “Ah, hell. This is bad.”

“Why?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nothing, man. Just– it’s kind of weird to be flirting with my little brother’s history professor.”

“I don’t mind,” Cas says, too quickly. Dean notices, and his lips curve into a small smile. They’re very nice lips. Cas thinks he would like to kiss them.

“What did you mean, just now,” Dean says, “when you said ‘You’re Dean’?”

Castiel shakes his head. The memory feels fuzzy now, its edges blunted by whiskey. “I assigned a paper. We were discussing the story of Cain and Abel, and its interpretations across cultures and religions. I asked each student to offer their own interpretation. Sam wrote an essay about you.”

Dean’s smile falls. “He did?”

“He argued that Cain would never have killed his brother out of jealousy or spite, because older brothers are protectors, caretakers. He spoke very highly of you. I thought it was a remarkable essay.”

“Uh,” Dean says. “He wrote about– I mean, our childhood? Did he–”

“Some.” Castiel thinks, faintly, that this is far more personal a conversation than he expected to be having on Valentine’s Day at a bar. “You dropped out of high school, didn’t you?”

Dean’s face goes suddenly hard, lips pressed into a line. “Well. Sam had Ivy League ambitions, and college is expensive.”

“Which leads you here, working as a bartender on Valentine’s Day.”

“It’s good work,” Dean says, face stony. Then suddenly he smiles, too wide to be sincere, and says, “You know, meeting hot guys is just an added bonus.”

“Convenient when you’re single and working on Valentine’s Day, I suppose.” Cas holds his gaze. Dean licks his lips.

“Listen,” he says. “I finish my shift in about ten minutes. Do you wanna–”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Cool.” And then Dean smiles for real. He looks away to hide it, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Um, I–”

Then a group of bikers come in, stumbling and shoving at each other, and Dean has to get back to work.

So Castiel nurses a beer for the last ten minutes, watching Dean work. He has nice arms, tan and freckled and muscled. He has nice everything.

There’s something strange about this– how Dean is both familiar and unfamiliar at once, how Castiel knows him too well and not well enough. He thinks, drunkenly, that this is the beginning of something. Him, Dean, this bar. Valentine’s Day.

And then it’s midnight and Dean is untying his apron, dusting off his jeans and stepping out from behind the counter. He tugs Cas off the barstool by his tie, one hand reaching up to loosen the knot.

“Come on,” Dean says. “We can take my car.”

But they don’t make it to the car. They end up making out in the alley behind the bar, hips bumping together, Dean’s hands under Cas’s shirt and Cas’s hands… elsewhere. It’s not romantic, but Castiel’s never been a romantic. It’s good, though. Dean stops kissing him for long enough to put lips to his ear and say, “Be my Valentine?”

Castiel just laughs and laughs, and Dean kisses him to shut him up, and maybe the night’s not so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on [tumblr](http://shootingstarcas.tumblr.com/post/111922295636/the-very-belated-and-very-unnecessary-valentines).
> 
> Thank you to [Onja](http://appleblossomdean.tumblr.com/), [Jess](http://wincechesters.tumblr.com/), and [Tasha](http://kraziiisme.tumblr.com/) for looking this over! Thanks also to my 1k1hr buddies over on tumblr for motivating me to write this. Good times.


End file.
